North Island Road Trip – Part 2

After dropping Fiona off at the airport, I drove into Auckland to meet
Halley and Noah. Noah is a friend from Santa Barbara who also lived at the co-op house last year, and he followed me to New Zealand the semester after I went. We had been planning that he would buy the car when I left for months, so I bought it with him in mind. Halley is Noah’s girlfriend, and she just started a Masters in Public Health at Victoria University in Wellington. This was Noah’s second week of classes, and I was a bad influence in convincing him to come on a road trip instead of attending class – I think he was happy to oblige. Halley’s classes are mostly remote, so it was easier for her to come, although she had to attend class on zoom from the hostel for one of the days.

Anyway, after dropping Fiona off, I drove into central Auckland and tried to find parking near the hostel we were staying at for the night – and failed miserably. Auckland is decidedly one of the worst places I’ve ever had the displeasure of driving in. I picked up Halley and Noah instead, and we drove to Eden Park, where we got a good view of the city. Eden Park is a volcanic crater – in fact, the whole city sits on a volcano field that is (as of right now) dormant.

That evening, Halley and I went to go see the Barbie movie. I had actually seen it the night before already, and felt like there was so much to it that I wanted to see it again. I was also quite overwhelmed from being in the city, and the movie theatre offered a dark, controlled environment where I did not have to make any decisions about where to go or what to do. I was glad we were leaving Auckland the next day.

The next morning, Noah and I left Halley in class at the hostel and drove to the Coromandel Peninsula. This was the first step in the week long trip back to Wellington and then Christchurch. Below is the route we took for the way back – some of the same areas I had been with Fiona, but different people with different priorities so overall a very different trip.

The Coromandel Peninsula is famous for its Kauri forests, stunning views, and unique beaches. The road was narrow and winding, and we had to take a detour because one road was closed, possibly still due to damage from Cyclone Gabrielle. We did a hike to a Kauri grove around lunch time, which was stunning.

From there, we continued driving (I drove all day while Noah worked on rewiring his brain to the left side of the road). The views were stunning, and we took another short hike. Unfortunately, we hiked directly into a cloud. We saw a beautiful sunset, later though.

That night, we camped at a very fancy campground called Hot Water Beach. It is famous because there is a stream of hot water thar runs through the sand, and when the tide is low you can dig a hole in the sand and create your own hot tub. The next low tide was around 6am, and evidently, you could access the hot water for 2 hours on either side of low tide. Noah and I decided to go watch the sunrise around 7 and find the hot water. It was one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen.

We started digging in the sand where we thought the hot water could be, and had dug a pretty deep hole, but it was still cold. At that point, a local guy walked up and told us that the hot water was farther down the beach. We ran farther along the beach and started digging again. After a couple minutes, the guy caught up with us and told us that we had not gone far enough yet. We walked with him around some boulders sticking out onto the beach and sure enough, the sand was steaming. There was a stream of hot water coming through the sand, and in the middle, it was too hot to stand in. By that time the tide had come up too far too dig a hole to sit in, so we just stood with our feet in the warm water.

After breakfast and packing up, we drove to Rotorua, where we met Halley, who had taken the bus there. Noah drove for the first time, and overall did well, although he did err a little far to the left and only drove into a ditch a little bit. This is fairly normal – when you are used to sitting on the left side of a car with most of the car being to your right, you have to readjust when suddenly most of the car is on your left. Also, New Zealand roads are narrow, and often the road ends at the stripe – shoulders are often nonexistent.

Once in Rotorua, we went on a walk near the city with some geothermal activity on it. Geothermal things are cool, but often they just smell really gross, and the water is incapable of sustaining life because of the weird (but natural) chemicals and high temperatures.

That evening, we camped at a lake nearby. It was beautiful, but COLD! In the morning, our hands were stiff and painful as we tried to pack up the car.

I really wanted to go to an area called Te Urewera, which is the other natural area in New Zealand recognized as a legal person. It is the land of the iwi Ngāti Tūhoe, which I have been told is the iwi with the worst relations with the Crown. The board that governs Te Urewera has 6 iwi members and 3 Crown representatives, which means that this area is no longer managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). DOC manages most other natural areas in New Zealand, and are responsible for the tracks and hut system. This meant that this area was not managed the same way, and after some googling we learned that it is currently inaccessible because the iwi is in the process of redesigning the whole park to be more aligned with the cultural aspects of how Māori interact with the environment.

Nearby, however, was the Whirinaki Forest Park. We found a nice little loop track to do, which turned out to be a stunning walk through a beautiful forest. When we got back, we decided to camp at the parking lot because there was no one else there. The night before, Halley and Noah had slept in the tent while I slept in the car, and this night I slept in the tent.

The next morning we froze as we packed up our camp. After going on another short hike nearby, we drove to Taupō. In Taupō we walked around the city a bit, stopped at Huka Falls, and then got in the free thermal hot pools in the city. Luke-warm pools would be more accurate – they were just warm enough that getting in them was acceptable, but once you were in, you could tell just how cool they actually were. The only problem is that it was colder outside, so when we finally got out we were chilled to the bone, and a bit dirty because the water in them wasn’t all that clean. All we really wanted was a hot shower, but we were planning on camping in a free campground just outside the city. After some googling while sitting in the car shivering, we found out that it would only cost us about $20 each to camp at the Taupō Holiday Park, so we drove there. It turned out that the park had not only showers and a heated kitchen but also an enormous heated pool with a movie playing, water slides, and a hot tub. We all stayed in the pool and hut tub for several hours and thoroughly enjoyed being warm for the first time in days. That night, we decided to all sleep in the car together. It can comfortably sleep 2 people, and three was very tight, but we were warm all night, which made it worth it.

The next morning, we jumped around on the big bouncy pillow the park had before starting our drive south. On the way, we did a hike in Tongariro National Park. The weather was beautiful, and almost no clouds obscured the mountain, which meant I finally saw the mountain that had been hidden while Fiona and I were there.

That night, we hiked into a hut in the Ruahine Forest Park. There was one other woman there, and she had already started a fire, which was amazing considering we arrived after sunset. The next morning was a bit frosty, but it was quite warm by the time we hiked out.

That day was also Noah’s birthday, so we stopped on our way to Wellington and had a nice lunch, which we all thoroughly enjoyed as we’d been eating camping food for days at that point (oats with milk powder and dried fruit for breakfast, sardines and wraps for lunch, and rice and lentils with a carrot for dinner). Halley has an apartment in Wellington, so we drove there and dropped off our stuff. From there we did a short hike and got some nice views of the city before fixing dinner.

That night the Women’s World Cup game with Sweden vs Italy was happening in Wellington, and since we were there we decided it would be fun to go – some people fly halfway across the world to see these games, so we might as well take the opportunity since we happened to be in the city. It ended up being quite an exciting game, with Sweden beating Italy 5-0. I think it was the first professional sports game I’ve ever seen.

The next morning, Noah and I got up very early to catch the ferry back to the South Island. We got on the ferry without a problem, and spent the whole time outside on the observation deck. It’s a good thing we did, because as we were leaving Wellington harbor, we were surrounded by what was probably around 1000 dolphins!

From where we got off the ferry in Picton, we drove back to Christchurch. We stopped in Kaikōura for a late lunch of fish and chips, which we took to eat on the point outside town. Kaikōura is known for its sea life, and we saw some fur seals and a whale!

We arrived back in Christchurch after sunset, at which point I dropped Noah off and drove to the house I was renting a room in for the next 3 weeks. It was such a good road trip, and now I was glad to start sleeping in an actual bed again for a little while and have a chance to organize myself a little bit and prepare for the next episode.